Ewoks vs. Gungans

[OB1]

So who would win? The hated Ewoks or the even more hated Gungans?

Here's a real photograph from one of their battles, just to think about:

[Dark Jaguar]

I wasn't sure what on Earth a gungan was until I saw a small part of that picture, then I remembered that's what Jar Jar is. Hmm, I'd say Ewoks, because they are far cuter, and that's their strength!

[Great Rumbler]

The ewoks. They might be cute and furry, but they kicked some serious imperial booty. And they are nowhere near as annoying as Jar-Jar.

[alien space marine]

Ewoks are smarter then Gungans , look at how many heavily armed AtAT walkers they destroyed with sling shots and primitive weapons.

[Darunia]

Who's better...? All-around superiority belongs to the Ewoks; they're cute and fluffy, and had two of their own movies. Gungans are just stupid, mass computer-generated morons...they failed miserably in the Battle of Naboo. The Ewoks were determined, and kicked ass, despite everything. In a battle between the two, I think that it'd be close...if the Ewoks had surprise on their side, they'd win...the Gungans, however incompetant, had that colorful bubble-making "artillery"....does that count?

[OB1]

They're still some of the most realistic-looking CGI models in film today.

And the Ewoks would have failed miserably if it weren't for Lando and Luke.

[alien space marine]

dont forget Chebacca!

[Dark Jaguar]

But still a distant second to what is still THE most realistic looking CG in movies, Final Fantasy: Spirits Within.

[alien space marine]

Lord of the rings!

[OB1]

Originally posted by Dark Jaguar
But still a distant second to what is still THE most realistic looking CG in movies, Final Fantasy: Spirits Within.

Um... the FF CGI is nowhere near as good as the TPM or AotC CGI. It looks great as a 100% animated feature, but you would not be able to take any of the characters from that movie and drop them into a live-action movie and make it look convincing.

LotR looks good, but not as good as the last two SW movies. There's actually a lot less CGI in the Rings movies than most people think. Much of those great "special effects' are actually the great scenery of New Zealand.

[Dark Jaguar]

Okay then..., I step out now...

[A Black Falcon]

I just finished watching (over the past 2 days) all 6+ hours of the FOTR DVD documentaries... OB1 is correct. It really is amazing how much of that movie is NOT digital... just watch those extras then the extras from Star Wars eps 1 and 2. The difference is very dramatic... FOTR really is done in the classic way -- real locations, sets on soundstages, and LOTS of miniaures... LOTS of miniatures. Very, very little is really CG... impressive, considering how it looks like a lot could be CG. But its not...

Star Wars of course is the opposite -- its truly amazing how little of those movies is actually real... and how much George Lucas makes his movies in the editing room. The LOTR DVD never even mentioned moving around characters in digital editing... something that was a big topic in Star Wars... and bluescreen? It was in almost everything in SW and in only a few places in LOTR.

Plus there's all the CG characters... sure TTT had Gollum, but Jar Jar, despite his annoy factor, did a lot of that similar stuff years earlier... and TCW just improved on that...

Oh, and on the subject at hand. First. Ewoks are great! I always liked the Ewoks, and don't understand why so many people hated them... Second, the Ewoks would win easily with 2 conditions: 1) Fight in a forest. and 2) Ewoks get the element of surprise. In a open plain (like the Battle of Naboo), I think the Gungans would win despite themselves...

[OB1]

I love both the Ewoks and the Gungans.

And yup, you're right about LotR. Star Wars is about 90% CGI (they did use some miniatures) while each LotR is about 40% CGI. It's unfortunate that TTT is going to win the academy award for best visual effects when it simply doesn't deserve it (AotC should win it, and the next best thing after that is Minority Report), but that's just the way the Oscars work.

Peter Jackson also got help from George Lucas before he started work on Rings because he didn't know anything about pre-visualization for movies, so Lucas helped him with that and showed him how ILM does everything. WETA (the f/x company for Rings) was also formed by ex-ILMers, in case anyone wanted to know.

[A Black Falcon]

Clones being beaten by TTT for VIsual Effects is insane... but it will happen, just like how TTT won't win for best picture... the Academy is so stupid...

[OB1]

It sure is. It's also insane that the Brazilian movie "City of God" didn't get nominated for best foreign film.

[Darunia]

In my opinion, the new Star Wars prequel triology is disappointing BECAUSE of the CGI. CG may be very advanced, but you can still tell--usually pretty easily--when something is CG...and you can easily tell in Clones. Using a CG Threepio was also very bad; he looks like a cartoon. Using CG when they must is fine, but they used it for EVERYTHING! I wouldn't be surprised if we see a computerized Ian McDermiard in Episode III.


Ewoks would probably win...especially if they had the numbers, surprise, and forested terrain. And they're just cooler.

[OB1]

God, I am so sick of this stupid anti-CGI crap. Everyone is like "CGI is so fake! Old-school special effects are better!". That's such bullshit. The clones looked very realistic, and the only way you could tell that threepio was CGI was because you simply could not do that scene in AotC with a guy in a suit. He most certainly did not look like a cartoon, and if you honestly think that then you've got to get your eyes checked. Threepio's model looked identical to the real Anthony Daniels in costume, which is certainly more realistic-looking than any of the CGI characters from any of the LotR movies. CGI is not yet at the point where everything is 100% photo-realistic, but it certainly looks more realistic than puppets and plastic models. Why don't you try forming your own opinion instead of just listening to the idiots from Entertainment Weekly, etc.

[WhiteFleck]

Dang, it never really clicked in my mind that 3PO wasn't real... that probably supports OB1 right there.

[OB1]

Darunia: So you're telling me that CGI Threepio looks like a cartoon? From these screenshots, tell me which ones are the real 3PO and which ones are the CGI 3PO. Please, just try.








And you can easily tell that this Clone is a CGI character? Yeah right. If you didn't already know that there weren't any real clones in the movie, you could easily mistake this for a guy in a suit.

[OB1]

Originally posted by WhiteFleck
Dang, it never really clicked in my mind that 3PO wasn't real... that probably supports OB1 right there.

Yes, and most of the great CGI shots in 'Clones does not look like CGI at all. Unless you watched the docs you wouldn't be able to tell in many cases which shots are CGI and which ones are real.

[A Black Falcon]

I don't see why some people hate CG... while a lot of CG is noticable, some isn't... and when it is its sure to look better than the alternatives in almost every case! Does CG Yoda look like a real person? Not exactly. But does he look better than he did as a puppet? Definitely! As for the clone troopers, they too look very, very good... and CG Threepio is indistinguishable from normal Threepio... I sure can't tell when its one or the other... same with CG Obi-Wan and CG Jango...

[Darunia]

"Why don't you try forming your own opinion instead of just listening to the idiots from Entertainment Weekly, etc."

Shit head, that was my own opinion. I've never read anything on the topic from EW, etc.

[OB1]

Oh please. You heard some other idiot say the same thing so you just repeated them. I know dozens of people like you.

So go ahead, tell me which C-3PO there is the CGI one! It looked like a cartoon to you, so it shouldn't be difficult!

[Darunia]

That clone troopers is very unrealistic; more akin to a videogame character. If you can't tell that its animated, you have problems with reality.

The three CPO pics, to avoid embarassment, I can't surely say without seeing them in motion. Individial screens are different; though that clone is as fake as OB1's ego. Either they're all CGI, or if one of them is real, it's the third one. The 2nd one is as fake as the trooper.

[OB1]

You're absolutely delusional, Darunia. The third one is CGI. The first one is real, but I'm not sure about the second one. And you really think that Clone looks like a video game character?

*tsk tsk tsk*

Sad, sad, little boy.

[Great Rumbler]

The CG trooper looks pretty good to me.

[OB1]

It looks incredible. The reason why they didn't make any real clone suits was because of how realistic the CGI modelers were able to make them. You should have seen the detail up close in the IMAX version. I was blown away.

[Darunia]

I beg to differ.

My main point about CGI being fake was in Episode I; the Battle of Naboo, when the Gungans were faceless, identical clones of one another.

[OB1]

Well you're blind then.

And the Gungans looked alike because they are of a different species than us. Just like all Lions look basically the same, or all frogs look basically the same.

[Darunia]

And the Gungans looked alike because they are of a different species than us. Just like all Lions look basically the same, or all frogs look basically the same.


Again, I don't think so...no two Ewoks looked alike. I mean the Gungans even dressed in the same thing, and it wasn't a uniform! They really did just use the same model, times a few hundred!

[OB1]

The three CPO pics, to avoid embarassment, I can't surely say without seeing them in motion.

Well no fucking shit! When you see Threepio moving around the Droid foundry area you know that there is no possible way for that to be real because of the crazy stuff they're doing and the camera angles used. But you showed that you can't even tell the difference between real Threepio and fake Threepio, so you really do have egg on your face now.

[Darunia]

I can tell u that the clone trooper is fake. As is the 2nd C3PO. The only questionable ones are C3PO #1 & 2.

[OB1]

Originally posted by Darunia
[B]And the Gungans looked alike because they are of a different species than us. Just like all Lions look basically the same, or all frogs look basically the same.


Again, I don't think so...no two Ewoks looked alike. I mean the Gungans even dressed in the same thing, and it wasn't a uniform! They really did just use the same model, times a few hundred! [/B]

What the fuck? Those were uniforms! If you would look more closely at the movie, you'd see that there were Gundams of different height, ear shape, facial structure, etc.

[OB1]

Originally posted by Darunia
I can tell u that the clone trooper is fake. As is the 2nd C3PO. The only questionable ones are C3PO #1 & 2.

You can tell that the clonetrooper is fake because I already stated that all of the clones in AotC were CGI. And you can't even tell the difference between real and fake C-3PO. You're a very sad example of brainwashing by the media.

[Great Rumbler]

Gundams of different height, ear shape, facial structure, etc.

Ahahahaha!!

[OB1]

Haha, I guess you know what was on my mind at the time.

[Darunia]

You can tell that the clonetrooper is fake because I already stated that all of the clones in AotC were CGI

Don't you put words in my mouth. That trooper is fake, and it's plain to see. Even the best CGI isn't so realistic that that trooper is mistakable for real life.

[OB1]

You're so full of it. If I hadn't already told you that it was fake you wouldn't have known it.

[WhiteFleck]

The Animatrix has some absolutely awesome CGI.

[Sacred Jellybean]

I didn't know C3PO was CG in AotC, either. Damn...

I didn't care for the monsters that came out and attacked OB1 and... Hayden Christianson (yes, I seriously can't remember that character's name... pathetic, I know) when they were tied up to the pillars in the large arena. They looked pretty fake.

[Dark Jaguar]

I can't speak for Darunia, but I myself knew that storm trooper looking guy in that pic was CG the first time I saw him. In fact it's very apparent that most of the movie is CG, including C3PO. (Um, what's with actually spelling out the name phonetically? It's shorter saying it the right way.)

[OB1]

Like I said, the only reason you know that is because of the slight difference in movement (mainly that it's quite unusual for Threepio to move that way since he's always been stiff), camera angles, and shots that some certain CGI scenes have. There is no other way to tell that 3PO is CGI. Every detail, every little bump from the real Threepio has been recreated, and every single inch of his body is an exact duplicate of the real one. Computer graphics haven't gotten to the point where everything is 100% photo-realistic, but many of the models in AotC are indistinguishable from real models or props in every way except for animation (with certain models) which still hasn't been totally perfected in the CGI world. But come on, you can't seriously tell me that those clones look fake. Hell they look even more real than the original stormtroopers who always kind of looked like little action figures because of the cheap plastic that they used to make their suits. I could show you several shots where lots of CGI was used and you wouldn't be able to tell what's fake or not.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yes I can, I mean LOOK at that guy! Don't claim to have a better understanding of what I think than I do. What monumental ego...

Eh, I still say Spirits Within has the best CG I've ever seen. That's to be expected since that movie was worked on for so very many years. Pretty soon quicker dev time based CG will catch up, but those two new Star Wars movies weren't the ones to do it.



Let's just leave it at opinion okay? Maybe I've got a bit of reality bias, aliens and monsters and such being just kinda too far out to really be judged as realistic.

[OB1]

I'm sorry, but that FF guy does not look photo-realistic. The CGI in FF was incredible for a CGI animated movie, but comparing it to something like AotC where they actually made CGI characters that looked as real as the actors and props just shows your ignorance towards this subject.

You honestly think that these guys...

...look a lot more fake than this?

[OB1]

This is a very good CGI model, but he does not look like he's real.

This old man does however look real. If you don't notice the enourmous difference then there is no hope for you.

[OB1]

Another big flaw of the FF movie is that the animation of the characters is extremely unrealistic, something that Square acknowledged and apparently fixed with the new Animatrix short.

[Dark Jaguar]

While those ARE very ugly costumes in the original series (yeesh, puppets? frickin' PUPPETS and they think they have awesome efffects in the original?), it doesn't hide the fact that those guys look like CG. They are just too "smooth" and the wrinkles and such just seem so, something, like they are made of more exact "math" than the rest of reality. They just seem fake, for the same reason that Spirits Within still was quite apparently CG, even though as you can see that old man seems to get down all the details you would think are needed. One thing I know right off the bat that seperates all CG models from reality is transparency. Yoda, most "human" models, and even those Spirits Within models don't quite simulate how stuff "under the skin" is somewhat visible enough to give a sort of life glow to real creatures. Blood and stuff show through, kinda hard to explain, but it's like when you hold a light source under your finger and can see an extremely vividly bright finger with the light going through. It's these sorts of things that give it all away. Metals are different, it's much easier to make those look real, but something about them... Well, fabric is the first thing I notice when I'm looking at stuff that's artificial even in the real world. They tend to bend at such exact and precise lines in CG, and that's just unnatural. Maybe the main thing is just how angular that suit is and how utterly perfectly flat the various flat parts are. It's just not natural, as opposed to those far worse looking suits, which managed to look "real" (even though they were far too clean to have ever been in a fight :D) because they weren't so perfectly geometric and smooth. Just look at that one guy's shoulder pad, I mean sheesh, you can't get something that perfectly oval in reality.

I would prefer it if you didn't assume I meant whatever you would most hate to hear. You have a knack for that. I only said I think Spirits Within is the best CG I've seen, not that it's photorealistic. Oh, and please get over this obsession with convincing everyone that no one in the whole universe can make stuff look as good as Steven Speilburg okay?

Maybe I lashed out or something, but can't you just leave this to opinion? Truce? *holds out hand*

[OB1]

Ok I just watched the new Animatrix trailer the stuff from Final Flight of the Osiris is fucking incredible. The facial textures are this close *holds up fingers closely together* to being photo-realistic, and the animation has been improved a hundred fold over the FF movie. The characters would still look out of place if they were to stand next to a real person in a movie, but Square is almost there. Almost there.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah, it's a pretty good fact that motion capturing is still superior to artifical motion generation.

So, what's the link to that Animatrix site that's showing previews of this show again? I gotta see this. I only saw that hand drawn thing.

[OB1]

While those ARE very ugly costumes in the original series (yeesh, puppets? frickin' PUPPETS and they think they have awesome efffects in the original?), it doesn't hide the fact that those guys look like CG. They are just too "smooth" and the wrinkles and such just seem so, something, like they are made of more exact "math" than the rest of reality.

What the fuck? They're not organic creatures for Christ's sake, they're robotic-looking suits! They're supposed to look "smooth" and "mathematical".

They just seem fake, for the same reason that Spirits Within still was quite apparently CG, even though as you can see that old man seems to get down all the details you would think are needed. One thing I know right off the bat that seperates all CG models from reality is transparency. Yoda, most "human" models, and even those Spirits Within models don't quite simulate how stuff "under the skin" is somewhat visible enough to give a sort of life glow to real creatures. Blood and stuff show through, kinda hard to explain, but it's like when you hold a light source under your finger and can see an extremely vividly bright finger with the light going through. It's these sorts of things that give it all away. Metals are different, it's much easier to make those look real, but something about them... Well, fabric is the first thing I notice when I'm looking at stuff that's artificial even in the real world. They tend to bend at such exact and precise lines in CG, and that's just unnatural. Maybe the main thing is just how angular that suit is and how utterly perfectly flat the various flat parts are. It's just not natural, as opposed to those far worse looking suits, which managed to look "real" (even though they were far too clean to have ever been in a fight :D) because they weren't so perfectly geometric and smooth. Just look at that one guy's shoulder pad, I mean sheesh, you can't get something that perfectly oval in reality.

That has got to be the single most absurd thing I have ever heard in my entire life, and that's not hyperbole. The clone suits do not look more perfect than the stormtrooper suits. They had to scan real statues to make those models so it can't be too realistic. I can't believe you just said something that inane. I've lost so much respect for you now.

I would prefer it if you didn't assume I meant whatever you would most hate to hear. You have a knack for that. I only said I think Spirits Within is the best CG I've seen, not that it's photorealistic. Oh, and please get over this obsession with convincing everyone that no one in the whole universe can make stuff look as good as Steven Speilburg okay?

Maybe I lashed out or something, but can't you just leave this to opinion? Truce? *holds out hand*

No because CGI is very objective, and there are ways of comparing real objects with computer-generated ones and telling which objects look more like their realistic counterparts.